Mori Art Museum's director named a French Chevalier of Arts and Letters
France has made Mami Kataoka, director of Roppongi Hills' Mori Art Museum, a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, alongside artist Chiharu Shiota at the rank of Officier — a small item, but one more entry in over a decade of French recognition for the museum's leadership.
The French government has appointed Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo's Roppongi Hills, a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), Mori Building said. Artist Chiharu Shiota was appointed to the higher rank of Officier in the same ceremony. Béatrice Le Fraper du Hellen, France's ambassador to Japan, presented the honours at the ambassador's official residence on 8 September, according to Mori Building.
The ambassador's citation credited Kataoka with expanding the museum's role as a venue for international cultural exchange, including curating Shiota's "The Soul Trembles" exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris and establishing a curator-exchange programme between Japan's National Center for Art Research and the Centre Pompidou, Mori Building said. Kataoka is the third figure connected to the museum to receive French recognition: former director Fumio Nanjo was made an Officier in 2016, and Mori Building's first chairperson, Yoshiko Mori, received the Legion of Honour in 2013, the company said.
It's a modest news item next to a store opening or an earnings release, but it fits a pattern at Mori Building's flagship district: cultural programming as a long-run lever for Roppongi Hills' pull, the same logic behind Mitsui Fudosan's arts push at Midtown Hibiya. A sequence of French state honours for the museum's leadership over more than a decade suggests Mori Building's bet on the Mori Art Museum as an international calling card, rather than a conventional retail or office amenity, has outlasted any one director's tenure.